


Blackbird

by RickyPine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Charlie Bradbury Lives, Episode: s10e21 Dark Dynasty, Fix-Fic, Gen, Supernatural Spoilers, supernatural season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RickyPine/pseuds/RickyPine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate ending to Supernatural episode 10.21 "Dark Dynasty," in which a particularly devastating death gets averted at the last minute. Heartwarming will ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blackbird

I’ve never been more scared in my life than I am right now. Facing down a big bad assbutt (as Dean or Cas would say) like Eldon Styne will do that to a girl, I guess.

“You’re gonna give me what’s mine,” he says even as I pull out the only weapon I’ve got - a knife. “Me and my family’s.”

Internally, I curse myself. Why didn’t I bust up that computer a lot sooner? He must have heard me doing that, then followed the noise. Assuming that that’s the case, I say, “You know as well as I do it’s too late for that.”

“Where do you think you’re gonna hit me with that blade, huh?” Eldon asks, sneering. I have to admit, he’s handsome - what is it about the Winchester brothers, always getting tangled up with pretty people? Maybe it’s because they’re pretty people themselves. Birds of a feather flocking together and all that. But with that face he’s making right now, he might as well be a demon in his true form. Or an angel. People’s eyes have been burned out from seeing angels in their true forms, so I imagine they’re butt-ugly as all hell too.

“Wherever it’s gonna hurt most,” I say, tightening my grip on the knife. “Two humans enter, one human leaves.”

Eldon blinks in confusion. Clearly my Thunderdome reference is going over his head. But then, speaking of his head, he shakes it and rolls his eyes. “I don’t believe this. You’d sacrifice yourself for a stupid book? You nerds have the most screwed-up priorities.”

“I can say the same to you,” I say, pointing the knife at him. I remember something Sam had heard from Dean - that Eldon, like all the other men of his obscenely rich family, was surgically enhanced in ways that would probably make their ancestor, the infamous Victor Frankenstein, roll over in his grave. Among them - a second heart. Probably it’s located on the right-hand side of his chest (his right, not mine), while his original heart is to the left.

With this in mind, I point the knife in the direction of his first heart, then his second. I keep moving the knife back and forth. Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a dumbass by the toe…

“All right, enough,” Eldon says. He takes a step forward, almost getting into cutting range. I’m not so sure I’ll be able to slice through his pecs, but I have to in order to take out both of his hearts.

Then the door opens once again. I definitely wasn’t able to lock it, or put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign - but the really weird thing is, there’s nobody there. Or is there? I can hear the floor creaking ever so slightly. Is there something invisible in here? The Winchesters have told me about the infamous invisible hellhounds which once dragged Dean to Hell - literally.

The invisible thing turns out to be something a little more dangerous than a hellhound, though. Dangerous - but also very helpful to me.

Out of nowhere, a powerful gust of wind hits Eldon. I turn to the side, wondering if the window has opened as well - but it hasn’t. Whoever - or whatever - is in here is generating the wind themselves. But how?

That answer comes out when, for a second, there’s a flash of light, and I can see my unexpected savior. For a second, I stupidly mistake her for Rowena - she’s a redhead like her. Or like me.

But then I see her pair of huge copper-colored wings beating madly. Rowena’s no angel, in any sense of the word.

The redhead blinks out of view once again, but then reappears on Eldon’s other side. This time, I get to see her face.

She’s me.

Or some other version of me.

Either way, Eldon’s not getting blown down by the wind anytime soon. I have to help myself. Or...you know what? I’ll worry about the possibility of this being a post-mortem delusion later. For now, I need to take advantage of Angel-Me’s wind-based distraction and do what I planned to do earlier - that is, stab Eldon in the chest.

Approaching him, I find myself being buffeted by the same wind that’s howling around him. How I manage to stay standing upright, I really have no idea.

In the end, I manage to plunge the knife into his chest. I know I hit at least one of his hearts, based on the copious amount of blood that ensues. But I can’t drag the knife across to his other heart once I’ve got it in. Not only that, but it doesn’t want to come out when I pull on it.

Of course, two knives are better than one. Angel-Me proves that by throwing a second knife expertly into the back of Eldon’s neck. The tip of the blade protrudes through the place where his Adam’s apple used to be, and based on the choked, bloody gurgling he makes, I think his spinal cord just got severed. Maybe a crucial blood vessel or two as well.

He hits the floor facedown, jamming my knife deeper into his chest. Kind of like a reverse Dial M For Murder.

Then Angel-Me’s knife pops out of Eldon’s neck, seemingly all by itself - it’s just being lifted invisibly, of course.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, my hand over my chest as I struggle to get my breathing back to normal. “I...I owe you my life. Literally.”

“No worries.” I gasp as I hear Angel-Me’s disembodied voice, which, of course, sounds exactly like mine. “It’s my job to protect you anyway.”

“Who...who are you?” I ask. “Some kind of guardian angel?”

“If you wanna get super-technical about it,” Angel-Me says. “For now, though, just consider me a concerned third party from a Second Universe.”

I watch as the door - which had been blown shut in the wind fight - swings open by itself. “I...I…” I don’t know how to thank you. The words bounce around my brain but refuse to let themselves be coherently spoken out loud.

“Like I said, no worries.” Angel-Me becomes visible for a second and smiles at me. “You don’t have to thank me.” With that, she vanishes from sight once again, leaving me for good.

I cover my mouth as I stare down at Eldon’s corpse. I can’t believe I helped make that happen. Oh God...what would Sam and Dean think?

“Charlie?” I hear their deep voices as they run up to my room. Sam’s the first one in - he takes one look at Eldon, then at me, and wraps me in his arms. “Thank God,” he says. “But how...how’d you…?”

“See, I knew this Blackbird place was seedy just from the name,” Dean says as he comes in behind Sam, “but I didn’t know you could hire a killer here.” He looks at me and sees a few spots of Eldon’s blood on my hand. “Unless...no. You couldn’t have done this all by yourself...could you?”

“I...I didn’t,” I say. “My guardian angel helped me out.” Nothing like the truth, right?

Sam and Dean exchange glances. Do they believe me? They deal with more unbelievable crap than this on a daily basis. If it were possible to strain credulity for them…

“Well,” Dean says, coming in to hug me hello too, “I don’t care how it happened, I just care that it did.”

“Love you too, Dean,” I say with a nervous laugh.

“First things first,” Sam says, suddenly businesslike. “We’re gonna need to get rid of the body.”

“Yeah…” Dean looks around, then gathers up the sheets off the bed and wraps Eldon in it. Together, he and Sam lug the corpse to the Impala, while I’m sent ahead to unlock the trunk for them. Then I go back to my room and gather the sorry remains of my computer, which, it turned out, I didn’t even need to destroy after all.

Like all good little nerds, though, I made myself a backup. I emailed my files on the Book of the Damned to Sam, a fact to which I alert Sam and Dean as we make the long drive back to the Men of Letters’ bunker.

“I swear,” Dean growls, smacking the steering wheel in frustration, “it’s a friggin’ conspiracy with you guys.”

“Only ‘cause we care, Dean,” Sam says. “Only ‘cause we care.”

I lean back and look out the window, feeling like a little girl again because I’m in the backseat and all. I grin to myself as I imagine Rowena’s reaction to hearing about my close shave with death. She would be so disappointed to know Eldon had failed.


End file.
